Maybe soon, UH won't have to live in its basketball past

If you're a University of Houston fan, you no doubt cringed with the announcement ESPN would produce a documentary, "Survive and Advance," climaxing with North Carolina State's upset of the Cougars in the 1983 NCAA championship game.

Those who believe 30 years should be enough time to recover from a loss obviously aren't college basketball fans.

For you, watch the film anyway for director Jonathan Hock's poignant yet uplifting look at former North Carolina State coach Jim Valvano's fight to the finish against cancer.

For rabid Cougars fans, watch for the potential silver lining in the game analysis.

The outcome doesn't change. It still ends with Dereck Whittenburg's "pass" to Lorenzo Charles for the last-second shot to win.

But viewers who also happen to be Basketball Hall of Fame voters might gain a better understanding of the reason the heavily favored Cougars lost.

Coach Guy V. Lewis was announced last month as a nominee for the Hall of Fame. Considering he coached the Cougars to 27 consecutive winning seasons and five Final Fours before his retirement in 1986, the recognition is deserved.

Why Guy slowed it down

One reason critics give for the Hall of Fame snub is that he didn't win a national championship, more specifically that he didn't win that night with one of the best teams ever against the 10-loss Wolfpack.

He has been repeatedly second-guessed for slowing the game down, including in the film by a North Carolina State graduate assistant who said, "Coach Lewis might have been a good coach for us that night, because when he pulled the ball out, that gave us a chance."

Translator

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

Fortunately, the narrators are more fair when they point out Lewis had little choice after Clyde Drexler drew four early fouls and Hakeem Olajuwon, who had to carry the Cougars after that, lost his breath at Albuquerque's altitude.

"Mike Krzyzewski would have done the same thing," Houston athletic director Mack Rhoades said Tuesday.

Rhoades watched the film, liked it and agreed that perhaps it will cause voters to rethink Lewis' career and vote him into the Hall of Fame.

Perhaps that also would close one successful chapter of Cougars basketball just as another could be beginning.

No one expects three consecutive Final Four appearances, which the Cougars achieved from 1982-84. But it is not too much to expect more than one NCAA Tournament appearance since 1992.

If the Cougars are on the verge of a new era, it is beginning inauspiciously Wednesday night at Hofheinz Pavilion in the first round of the College Basketball Invitational.

For those unaware of the CBI, it is the consolation tournament for teams seeking consolation because they weren't invited to the real consolation tournament, the NIT.

The Cougars will open against Texas, slumming after 14 consecutive NCAA berths but, like Houston, a young team that needs survive-and-advance experience.

Rhoades said there is a misconception that the Longhorns have been avoiding the Cougars, given that they haven't met since 2000. Although he has been UH athletic director since only 2009, Rhoades said his understanding is the Cougars haven't wanted to play non-conference games they have little chance of winning.

A lesson from Haskins

"Don Haskins used to tell me the secret to success wasn't recruiting," Rhoades said. "He said the secret was scheduling."

Rhoades learned from the late Haskins, the only coach to take a Texas team to an NCAA title, as an associate athletic director at UTEP (formerly Texas Western, which won it all in 1966).

Rhoades' basketball pedigree also includes attending college at Arizona and grad school at Indiana, working in the athletic department at Marquette, and serving as athletic director at Akron.

"We're seeing some real positive signs in terms of the future of our program," Rhoades said. "We can be relevant again nationally."

He mentioned a young team that has won 19 games for coach James Dickey, more interest in the program among recruits, and the upcoming $40 million renovation of Hofheinz Pavilion.

Equally important, Rhoades said, is UH's move next season from Conference USA to a new league - yet to be named - because of the higher level of competition.

We have heard this before - in 1996, when the Cougars moved from the disbanded Southwest Conference to Conference USA, which at the time included basketball powers Louisville, Cincinnati, Memphis and Marquette.

High tides didn't raise all ships.

When all settles, if it ever does in a time of realignment, the new conference will include three teams in this year's NCAAs - Memphis, Cincinnati and Temple - along with Connecticut and an SMU program rebuilding under Larry Brown.

Meantime, the documentary airs nine more times before the end of the month on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU. Overlook the unhappy ending and relive Phi Slama Jama highlights.